When I have too much to say, I have no listener. It becomes immensely difficult for a talkative me to keep my thoughts to myself. I have to express it and this happens to be an ideal platform for me to do so.

And I am happy that more and more people
are following it closely this time.

In fact, on Saturday when India won against
Sri Lanka in the cricket match nobody really went gaga over it.

Cricket was
completely overshadowed by Saina’s bronze medal!

I was happy to see that for once
cricket took a backseat and badminton was given due importance.

But this post is not about cricket or any
other sport.

It is about why a country that has a large
pool of talent is lagging behind in terms of medal tally?

China which is more populated than our
nation has proved the worth of its citizens by getting highest number of
medals. Other countries that are nowhere close to our demography is winning
more medals than us. But here in a country of billion people, we have just 3
medals as of now! Probably more medals might come, but that again will be quite
less.

So this brings me to my question - what
could be the reason for this population: medal tally disproportion?

Is it lack of resources, lack of awareness,
lack of motivation for non-cricket players, what is it?

Reasons could be many and only a sports expert
like my friend Moulin can comment on it.

But in my view one of the major reasons why
we have fewer medals must be due to lack of sports education.

Let’s look at each aspect one by one:

Lazy
school days:
Just go back to your school days. Remember we used to have just two
sessions of Physical Training every week?

Yes, out of the entire 36 hours in a week,
just 2 hours were dedicated to Physical Training.

And in that session, we would just do some
random exercises, run around the ground 2-3 times, and that’s it. There was no
option such as choosing your favourite sport, practicing it and excelling in it
(at least school didn’t have such facilities). Of course, there were sports
club, but they were meant for Richie rich people. Middle class people like me
had to play in the colony. Now the situation is even worse. I hardly see
children running around and playing. Angry bird type of games has replaced
kho-kho and kabbadi.

Unconventional
career = short career span: As a kid, you dare not
say you want to be a sportsman or a sports woman. Because chances are you will
be looked down upon as a ‘dumb’ kid. I remember, in school, even if you won a
medal, you were considered a dumb kid just because you did not get a rank
between the first 10.

In our nation, a child is expected to
study, study and just study. You either have to be an engineer, an MBA, a CA or
a doctor. Sport is only to get a sports quota just in case you fall short of
percentage required for admission in a coveted college. Here sport is given a
step motherly treatment and is looked down upon as a ‘career for not so
intelligent people’. I have decided,
when I have kids, I will enrol them for professional training in whichever sport
they like. It is one of the most essential things for holistic development of
an individual. You will remain not just healthy, but it will also help you learn
about sportsmanship and team spirit.

Another myth is if you are a sportsman,
your career is short. This in my view is just a myth. In India, sportsmen do
have value. Ok you might not feature in ads like our cricketers, but after
retirement, you can run an academy like Gopichand or become an MP just like our
cricketers ;-). Why you even get a job in ONGC, railways, police force etc –
places where you and I can only dream of working.

So basically, you won’t become a Paan Singh
Tomar if you play and retire smartly.

High
priced fees: Let’s be honest. Asking a person to
shell out 50,000 Rs to one lakh for professional training might not seem too much
now-a-days. But in reality it is pretty high. No matter how famous the
institution is, the fees should be reasonable. I personally know of a lady
whose daughter was a talented tennis player. But the girl could not train
beyond a level because she could not afford the fees. At the cost of sounding
pompous I can say, India has indeed lost a talented player. So, I hope the
institutions reconsider their fee structure.

But having said that, I am really happy
that a lot of players are doing well. Ok some players like our hockey players
are losing out without fighting. But some like P Kashyap, Saina Nehwal, Mary
Kom have performed very well. And I believe the credit must also go to the Olympic
Gold Quest an initiative started by stalwarts like Prakash Padukone and Geet
Sethi who are doing their best to support these talented sports people.

But still considering that the Population:
Medal Tally ratio is quite low; it is high time that sports education is
seriously considered in schools and colleges.

Let’s encourage the next generation to take
up sports and make us proud!

I am sure they will, if it means going out
and playing instead of just studying ;-)

About me

Hi, i am Gayathri Vishwanathan. No not even distantly related to Vishwanathan Anand.
Wanted to be a journalist, but ended up in a usual corporate job.
Mundane activities of life take up my time, and when I reach my saturation point, I try to calm myself either by listening to music or through writing.
Let me warn you, my blogs are nothing like what others write, it is boring and sometimes tiresome (not to forget the thousands of spelling and grammatical errors I make), however I write with the intention to express myself and to strike a personal chord with everyone who reads this blog.
Hope to see you here baar baar lagataar :)